


Bridges Burn

by TorturedAuthorsSoul



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Graphic Description, M/M, Marriage Proposal, No Spoilers, Sad Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-26
Updated: 2018-03-26
Packaged: 2019-04-08 16:20:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14109267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TorturedAuthorsSoul/pseuds/TorturedAuthorsSoul
Summary: Otabek Altin x Yuri PlisetskyYuri and Otabek are out on a date, and Yuri has a surprise for his boyfriend. Unfortunately, fate had other plans.





	Bridges Burn

**Author's Note:**

> Heyyyy AO3 world! I wrote this a while ago just for some angst in my life. Just a quick, depressing one shot that isn't great, but was fun to write. I may edit the draft and give more description and detail, but this is the backbone of the story. Enjoy and let me know what you think!  
> P.S. The first half is written in RP format. I will fix it eventually.

“Yuri, where are you going?” Otabek laughed softly as he followed his boyfriend through the crowd, struggling to keep up as the smaller boy wriggled and slithered between all the people.  
“Keep up, Beka!” Yuri paused long enough to grab ahold of Otabek's hand and pull him along.  
“Yuri, slow down! You're making me run onto people!” he stammers as apologizes profusely to the couple that he had just hit with his shoulders.  
“Then you should have kept up in the first place!!” Yuri jeers cheerfully. “Besides, we're here.” He grins at his tall, dark boyfriend as he waits for a reaction. Otabek's eyes got wide as he took in the view that lay before him. The bridge they stood upon stretched over a wide channel of water. The half-moon and the stars reflected into shards of sparkling light that turned the entire scene into something that should belong in a fantasy tale. The street lights that were wrapped with white Christmas lights only added to the magic.  
“Oohhhh, Yuri.” Otabek breathed. “This is perfect.”  
Yuri smiles as he watches his boyfriends face take in the view. He wanted him to have one more beautiful memory about them and what they did together before he left for college  
“Yuri, what's wrong?” Beka was frowning slightly at the sudden lack of a smile of Yuri's face.  
Yuri stirred himself and smiled again quickly. “Nothing! Just...thinking.”  
“What about?” Otabek lightly brushed Yuri's hair to the side to watch his face.  
“Just how...beautiful you look when you're in awe.” Otabek's face was perfectly lit and his eyes were soft and sparkling with awe and joy, though they were still shadowed with concern.  
“Well, now you're just pulling my leg.” Otabek huffs, feigning offense.  
“You're right, you're just horribly ugly, what with your perfect jawline and soul-searching eyes and bad boy persona that hides your soft and squishy self. How could that possibly be considered hot?” Yuri lets the sarcasm be heard heavily in his voice.  
“And here I thought you only loved me for my motorcycle.” Otabek smiles and softly kisses Yuri on the cheek. Yuri blushes brightly, but smiles wider as he places a hand on Otabek's chest, leaning into him. “I love you, Beka,” he murmurs.  
“I love you too.” Beka smiles softly and kisses Yuri full on the mouth. Yuri immediately kisses him back, arching his feet and standing on tiptoe to reach his boyfriend easier. The sparks and the heat were flying between them, undiminished by the chill in the air. By the time they broke away, they were both gasping for air, their cheeks flushed brightly.  
“Damn.” Yuri breathes, a cloud escaping his lips. “That never gets old.” He grins.  
“Ha, tell me about it,” Beka smiles as he wraps his arms around Yuri from behind, resting his chin on the Russian's head. They could have stood there for hours, taking in the sparkling view together, but Yuri wasn't done yet.  
“C'mon, I have something else to show you!” Yuri grins widely, craning his neck to look up and behind at Otabek.  
“Yuri!” Otabek protests lightly.  
“You'll love it, I promise!”  
“If it involves you, of course I will.” Otabek kisses the top of Yuri's head before letting him go. Yuri grins and skips a few feet away.  
“This way!” The Russian was uncharacteristically giddy as he steps to the end of the bridge. His smile was so wide and infectious; then everything went up in flames, screams, and smoke.

Everything throbbed and heaved around Otabek before he could even force his eyes open. His ears were ringing painfully and everything around him was severely muffled and muted. His face was dry and felt almost fragile from the heat of the explosion. He was finally able to force his stinging eyes open and immediately closed them again against the horrors that surrounded him. He took deep breaths, trying to force down his nausea, but the smoke and ash only stung his throat and nose, leaving him coughing and retching. He forced himself up onto his elbows and opened his eyes again. Yuri. Oh god, where was Yuri. He frantically stumbled to his feet, almost immediately falling on his face. He was completely disoriented; the square looked alien. There was smoke and ash choking the air. There were chunks of the street flung far and wide around the bridge, sparks flying from splintered street lamps, shards of glass catapulted across the way, and everywhere, people bleeding out in agony, their bones crushed, their bodies lacerated, their lived draining away. Otabek fell to his knees, incapacitated and retching. When he finally had emptied his stomach and finished dry heaving, he pushed himself to his feet again, shaky. He tried to get his bearings, searching for any landmark that seemed familiar in the slightest. All that was unchanged was the water and the moon sparking off it.  
“Yuri, where are you?!” Otabek screamed, unable to ear his own voice and the desperation within in. As his hearing began to return, he wished it would go away again. The screams and sounds of total agony and fear ripped through him and tore at his heart.  
"Yuri please, where are you? Yuri!" He stumbled with no direction and continually fell over pieces of rubble and slipped on puddles of substances he didn't want to know the origin of. He was only vaguely aware if people around him, searching with desperation just as he was. Names were shouted and few responses given. It felt like he searched for an eternity with not even a hint that Yuri was still alive, or even in one piece. Nausea rose in him once again, but he forced it down, his need to find to find Yuri far more intense.  
"Yuri! Yuri, please!" He fell to his knees for what seemed like the millionth time, scraping his already bruised knees. The horrors surrounding him blurred and he felt hit tracks down his face. "Yuri. God, Yuri, please, /please/, I need-" His voice caught sharply in his throat. There, lying right in front of his knee.  
"Oh god. God, no please." He reached down, not wanting to touch it for fear that it would reveal to be real. The charms on the keychain jingled as he picked up the shredded and scorched remnants of Yuri's bag. The charms he had given Yuri seemed miraculously unscathed. He pulled at the keychain, which easily came off the wrecked bag, and pressed it to his lips, determined to see this as a good omen, that Yuri could be fine.  
"God, Yuri, please, be okay." He whispered against the ashy metal, the sharp taste of it stirring him to his feet. He saw a crumbled pile of stone, hinting that it may have been a bench in the recent past. Now he knew he was near where Yuri had just been smiling at him moments before this hell had broken loose. "Yuri!!!" His voice was hoarse and it broke, splitting through smoke and ash. The chaos around him seemed to slow and mute.  
There. Not ten feet away from him. A long, slender hand, seeming to reach from the rubble, right towards Otabek; a hand that Beka would know anywhere. The very same hand that had held his own so many times.  
"Yuri!" The shriek that escaped Otabek wasn't human; it was barely animal. He threw himself forward, panic spurring frenzied digging that tore his tails and raggedly cut at his hands. The stinging blood didn't slow him down. The sight if Yuri's perfect, unscathed hand kept a small flame of hope burning in Otabek's chest...but before long, the flame faded to a spark. A very dim spark. As he pulled stones and twisted metal away, the blood that was Yuri's life force streaked Otabek's hands and arms, mingling with his own blood. Yuri didn't twitch as Beka uncovered his crushed and bleeding body. "God, oh god, oh god, Yuri." Beka sobbed, his throat burning. "Damn it, Yuri, please, /please/ wake up."  
He gently lifted Yuri's shoulders and cradled his boyfriend, trying to wipe the dirt and blood off that perfect face. The moans escaping Otabek were guttural and low, full of keening misery. "Yuri, Yuri darling, please. I'm right here. It's okay now, I found you, you're going to be fine. You have to be fine. God, Yuri, what is happening?!" He sobbed onto Yuri's chest. A soft, soft touch on his forehead startled him. He sat up straight and almost screamed again. Yuri's eyes stared at him, full of deep pain.  
"Bek-" He couldn't finish the name, his voice so low and faded that Otabek could barely hear him anyway.  
"Shhh, it's okay, Yura. It's fine. You're fine, just breathe." Beka almost laughed he was so relieved to see the brilliant green if Yuri's eyes again.  
"Beka." Yuri tried again, somehow able to force the word out despite an undoubtedly collapsed lung. "Beka, I can't..."  
"Yuri, shh, you need to rest, okay? I'll get help soon, just...just hold on." Otabek looked around, trying to hide the franticness in his eyes.  
"B-" Yuri feebly reached for Beka's hand, pulling it to his chest. "Beka, I can't feel...I can't feel my toes, m-my legs." With each word, the panic in Yuri's voice rose until it was too much effort and he began to cough violently, blood bubbling from his lips and spattering Otabek's hand. Otabek's face went blank before he pulled Yuri closer, trying to calm him to that the spasming coughs would still.  
"Shh, Yuri, please, you need to calm down. I'm sure it's nothing. In sure you'll be fine, okay? Just breathe. Listen to my voice and breathe." Yuri was slowly able to breathe shallow, rasping breaths, his body limp from the effort.  
"God, Beka, god, I can't-" He but back a scream as the pain surged, but a high groan slipped out of his clenched teeth. His breathing got heavier and he squeezed his eyes shut. "Bek-"  
"Yuri, please, just hold on, okay? I'm sure help is coming right now. Just listen to me. Just listen to my voice. It's going to be fine. I promise. We're going to get you fixed up and then we'll go home and sleep for about a month." Beka stroked Yuri's hair as he spoke, his voice low and quiet, barely audible over the hellish screams around them, but it was the only thing that Yuri heard. "Then, after that, we're going to get ready for the Grand Prix Final. And you know what? We're going to be beautiful together. It's going to be a perfect performance, absolutely flawless. And the only reason we win is because you were so gracefully and flawlessly perfect. Every step, every jump, every spin, and every lift will be perfect and stunning. The flowers will rain upon us, covering the ice with a soft, fragrant carpet. They won't have enough people to clean them all off."  
He looked down at Yuri, seeing his eyes peacefully closed and a small smile on his bloodied lips. "And we'll go home victorious and rub it in the fat pigs face and shove it up Viktor's ass because he wouldn't train you. You've surpassed him. And-"  
Otabek paused, having expected some kind of reaction when he mentioned Viktor and Yuuri. His heart leapt into his throat. "Yuri?" He brushed a hand lightly over Yuri's cheek. "Yuri, love?"  
Yuri's face stayed still, almost as if he was sleeping so deeply that he couldn't be wakened by even the most intrusive noise. "Yuri, please look at me. Open your eyes and look at me!" Otabek's voice pitched up and the panic in his eyes spread to his chest. "Yuri!!!" He slightly shook his shoulder. "Damn it, Yuri, no, please come back! I need you, I can't do a damn thing without you!" He screamed, sobbing into his hand that was coated in the blood if the man he loved. "Yuri!"

Otabek felt like he had been waiting in the same hard chair for days. Yuri had been in surgery for hours. No one had told him anything about how he was doing. All he knew was that he was still alive...at least, he hadn't heard otherwise. He rubbed his eyes furiously with the heels of his hands, so damn tired of waiting for an answer that would completely change his life. He just wanted it to be over, one way or the other, and he felt wholly shitty about that. Tears welled up again, but they didn't spill over. He hadn't actually cried for hours. He figured in his tired brain that he was just dehydrated, but he couldn't seem to make his legs move him over to the water cooler across the hall. He just stared at it.  
"Damn it!" He yelled into the empty hall. He raked his fingers roughly through his hair and then pulled it tightly. "Damn it, damn it, /damn it/!!"  
"Excuse me?" A faint voice cut through his misery and he sat up quickly to see a nurse standing there.  
"What, sorry, yes?" He stumbled over his words, sick to his stomach but desperate to hear what she had to say.  
"You're the man who brought in-" she checked the clipboard in her hands. "Yuri Plisetsky?"  
"Yes, he's my boyfriend." He choked out.  
"He's out if surgery. In recovery room 204. The drugs will wear off relatively soon if you want to sit with him." Otabek stared at her, processing what she had said.  
"He made it? H-he's alive?" Hope rose in his voice, cautious, but desperately wanting to stay.  
"Yes, but...there could very easily be complications and his condition still isn't /good/, but..." She didn't finish the sentence, but gestured for him to follow and started down the hallway. He scrambled after her, giddy, but still worried. Complications? Condition? What could that mean? His brain was too tired to figure it out. After seeming to go through a thousand different hallways that all looked the same and turning a hundred different corners, they arrived at a door marked 204. She opened the door for him and left. Otabek quietly closed the door behind himself and stepped around the curtain. He couldn't seem to breathe. Yuri didn't seem like he could be alive. There was a tube out of his mouth and there were bandages everywhere; but that one, perfect hand lay on top of the sheets, waiting for Otabek to come hold it. Beka pulled a chair to the side of the bed and all the air went out of him when he sat down. He gently took Yuri's hand and pressed it to his forehead. He didn't say anything; he didn't have the energy. He only closed his eyes and listened to the mechanical breathing that kept Yuri alive. Hours went by, nurses and doctors came in and out and in again, and Beka, despite his exhaustion, didn't fall asleep; he just held that hand, giving Yuri a lifeline to travel back to him on. A tap on his shoulder jolted him awake. He gasped for a moment, trying to calm his pounding heart.  
"Sorry, sir! I didn't mean to startle you!" A young nurse bowed, blushing. "I only wanted to tell you that the doctors have finished meeting and have information for you now."  
"N-no worries." Otabek stammered, rubbing his face vigorously. "Where can I speak to them?"  
"They'll be in here in a moment." She started to leave, then relented and turned back. "Can I get you coffee or something?"  
"Please." Otabek accepted gratefully, his voice hoarse. The nurse smiled with sympathy and left. Before long, she returned with both a cup of coffee and a large glass of ice water with two doctors in tow. They greeted him and took seats.  
"If we may ask your relationship with the patient before we continue?"  
"He's my boyfriend." Beka whispered after taking a sip of the water. "I was with him when-" He choked on his words.  
"Very well." One doctor shuffled through his papers and asked Otabek to confirm as much of Yuri's personal information as possible. After that, they walked him through the damage that they had tried to fix during surgery.  
"To be completely candid with you, Mr. Altin, I'm shocked that he's still alive. Unfortunately," The doctor pushed his glasses up, stalling. "The damage to his spine and his brain is substantial. You said that he recognized you after you found him?"  
"Yes." Beka whispered, just wanting to shrink away and not hear the rest. He already felt sick.  
"Well he's..he's in a coma now."  
Otabek's heart stopped. "W...are...are you sure?" His voice rasped and caught.  
"Unfortunately, yes, and that's not all. Even if he does wake up, he's going to be paralyzed from the mid chest down."  
The world stopped. Otabek didn't understand what the doctor meant. Paralyzed didn't mean that Yuri wouldn't be able to stand on his own two legs. It didn't mean that he wouldn't be able to walk into Beka's open arms. It couldn't mean that Yuri could never skate again, never win the Grand Prix Final, never...never skate with Otabek again.  
"Oh god, damn it, this can't be happening. This can't possibly be...they're wrong, they have to be." Otabek thought, his mind racing, straining to understand. "He can't be. He can't. He just can't. It's not even possible. Yuri. Yuri can't be paralyzed. He can't, he can't, he just..." Otabek broke. He grabbed his hair and bent over, shaking all over, feeling absolutely sick. The tears burned down his face. "Oh god. Oh god. God, no. Damn it, damn." He vaguely registered that the doctor murmured meaningless condolences as he left Otabek in that shattered world. "It's not real!!! It can't be real! Yuri would rather die than never skate again, he wouldn't be fighting so hard if this were true!" Beka was aware that he was babbling on to himself, but he didn't care. What he was saying had to be true. It had to be. Yuri wasn't paralyzed. He wasn't.  
"Mr. Altin? Otabek Altin?" Otabek nearly jumped through the ceiling at the touch on his shoulder. He looked wildly around, at the equally startled nurse, at the hospital hallway. Hallway. Wasn't he just in...  
"I was dreaming??" He gasped. The nurse hesitantly nodded. The relief that flooded Otabek was warm and instantaneous. He rubbed his face, almost laughing. "Oh god. Oh, thank god." He sighed.  
"You were with Mr. Yuri Plisetski, correct? Your relationship with him?" The nurse asked, her pen hovering over a piece of paper on her clipboard.  
"He's my boyfriend."  
"Here are his personal effects." She handed him a plastic bag. "And these are the valuables." She handed him a Manila folder.  
"Valuables? What valuables?" Otabek opened the envelope, confused. Two gold rings slid into his palm. One small, fit for Yuri's slender fingers, and the other clearly made for Otabek's bigger hands. Otabek stared in shock. Engagement bands? "He was going to...?" He whispered.  
"The doctor is coming to speak with you." She turned and left. Otabek watched her go, shell-shocked.  
"Yuri was going to propose to me?"  
The doctor approached. "Mr. Otabek Altin?"  
"Y-yes. I was told you had an update on my boyfriend, Yuri Pkisetski."  
"I'm sorry, but he passed away.”


End file.
